A Body in Barcelona: Max Cámara 5

by Jason Webster

  Selma was changing, but more than any of them could guess. In public she was still the same, still dressed in shades of brown and grey, still with a veil over her hair and no make-up. She knew that she was no beauty, and her figure had never been the best. But in private she was creating someone else – a new skin for her to step inside at will, with no one to judge her.

  The name Sandrita had popped into her head the moment that her new self revealed itself to her. It was perfect: European sounding, younger, more dangerous. Sexy. Using the timer on her camera she managed to capture a couple of pictures of herself wearing some black-and-orange lin-gerie she found in a shop off the Calle Real. The colour brought out the tone of her skin, she thought. And within a couple of hours she had posted them on the website Milanuncios.com. More than just a massage, she wrote in the text box. Affectionate, compliant and discreet. Exquisite aromatic oils and candles. Then she put the number of the new mobile phone she had bought, and as an afterthought, she added, Special services offered. And it was done.

  Strangely, it was that last line that had brought her in the most work. She was not sure exactly what she had meant by it – it was more a way of making her advert stand out from the others, with their pictures of younger, firmer, whiter-skinned women. But the requests had come in soon enough. Now she regarded many of them as her favourite clients: Joaquín, bound to a wheelchair by cerebral palsy – his father would bring him every couple of months or so, and she would give them a discount, working first with the boy and then the father as Joaquín dozed in a post-coital reverie in the living room. She got seventy-five euros for the two of them, and they were usually finished and gone within the hour. A good rate of pay, and she enjoyed it.

  There were others like Joaquín, often physically handicapped in some way, or unable to achieve an erection, perhaps after prostate surgery. The massage did wonders, relaxing them, an overload of sensation for their hungry skin. And she was genuinely kind and caring. That, more than anything else, made them return, she felt. Other women might be better-looking, have beach-brown bodies and no inhibitions. But Sandrita offered something that all men wanted but were lacking: a concentrated dose of affection. Whether they had an orgasm or not – and some of them were physically incapable – was secondary. When they walked out of her door they had a sparkle of joy about them. And that could only help to make the world a better place.

  That morning she had José coming. Among the ‘specials’, as she called them, he was one of the most special. The damage he had suffered might have driven many men to take their own lives. But he survived. There was a driven quality about him, an intensity and passion so that at times he could appear stern, unforgiving. But after a couple of moments with her he relaxed and changed. Now she could see the shift in him the moment he crossed her threshold.

  She never asked about her clients’ lives, unless they wanted to talk about something. She guessed quite early on that José was military, or ex-military. Something about his bearing, and the wound, looked like something only a man who had seen action in battle might suffer from. The damage to his groin area was comprehensive: deep indents in the skin around the upper thighs and pubic bone, perhaps from shrapnel. She did not ask. And where his penis and testicles should have been, there was nothing but tender, mangled flesh only partially covered by the scant hair he had left. Other clients had a manhood that had ceased to function. With José there was nothing there to function in the first place.

  He arrived as usual with a sharp rapping knock on the door. She opened and he stepped in. Only after the door was closed behind her did he lean over and kiss her on both cheeks.

  ‘Wonderful to see you again, José.’

  ‘And you, Sandrita.’

  ‘Everything’s ready. I’ll get you a drink.’

  José liked a glass of sweet red vermouth with ice and a slice of lemon. As he sat down on the sofa, she went into the kitchen, poured him one, checked that everything was in place, and then returned to serve him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. And he looked at her, smiling. He liked the way that she painted her face, with silver eyeshadow and thick black eyeliner curling up a little at each side: it gave her an exoticism, a promise of voluptuous joy.

  She leaned down and stroked his cheek.

  ‘You look like something’s troubling you,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter? Tell Sandrita your problem.’

  ‘It’s just …’ he began. ‘I may not be able to see you again for some time.’

  She frowned. Her sadness was genuine. Almost.

  ‘In fact, there’s a chance this may be the last time I’ll ever see you.’

  ‘Oh, José,’ she said, and she sat down beside him, pressing his face to her breasts. ‘How terrible. But why?’

  ‘It’s to do with work,’ he said, mumbling into her bra. ‘I can’t say anything more.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She pulled his head away and held it in both hands to look at him.

  ‘Events will very soon be taking me away,’ he said. ‘So I’m afraid that this is almost certainly goodbye.’

  She kissed him on the forehead and stood up in front of him.

  ‘Then we shall make it a very special occasion,’ she said. ‘Wait here and I’ll get ready.’

  The colonel sat on the sofa drinking his vermouth, staring out of the window over the rooftops of the city. His mind was at rest for one delicious moment, anticipation drowning out for just a few short minutes the many racing thoughts and plans and directions that had been occupying his mind these past days. He closed his eyes, licked the sweet liquid from his lips.

  He heard soft footsteps coming out from the bedroom and he opened his eyes again to see Sandrita before him. She wore a red-and-black corset with stockings and black high heels. Her hair was tied back in a tight ponytail and her expression had changed – no longer soft, but unforgiving.

  She leaned down, grabbed his hand and placed it forcibly on to the prosthetic erection strapped to her groin.

  ‘Do you feel that?’ she asked. ‘Do you remember what it feels like to be a man?’

  ‘Yes,’ the colonel nodded, his face blushing.

  ‘Come with me,’ said Sandrita. ‘I’m going to show you what manhood really means.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Final Report

  INVESTIGATION TERMINATED

  Sensitivity level: Maximum

  All inquiries to the Office of the Minister to the President of the Government

  NO FURTHER ACTION TO BE TAKEN

  This case is now CLOSED

  Abogados Grau S.A. – Hacienda investigation

  Hacienda’s tax investigations into Abogados Grau S.A. commenced after attention was drawn by a source in the European Environment Agency (EEA) to the considerable quantities of EU grant monies that were being administered by the law firm. An informal and anonymous tip-off came and after initial inquiries it was decided to launch a full-scale investigation. The suspicion was that Abogados Grau was carrying out tax fraud.

  Abogados Grau S.A. had offices on C/ Poeta Querol in Valencia. It was owned and controlled in its entirety by Doña Francisca Grau, graduate from Valencia University and a Doctor in Law since 2003.

  The investigation into the finances of the law company confirmed that it regularly received monies in the form of grants from EU funds, principally from the EEA. It acted as an administration company for small farmers in the Valencia area, claiming EU agricultural and environmental grants on their behalf. As a representative agency, ostensibly working for the benefit of farmers to obtain money that they were entitled to under EU law, this was entirely legal.

  Over time, Abogados Grau developed a modus operandi whereby they would contact farmers in the Valencia area offering them access to EU funds. In most cases the farmers were elderly (73.1 per cent were officially retired) and were unaware of the grants. A large majority (83.4 per cent) of the land that they owned was no longer profitable as farmland and had been abandoned.

&nb
sp; A small percentage (29.3 per cent) of the funds accessed by Abogados Grau were from other EU funds, but the remaining amount (70.7 per cent) came from the Environmental Fund. In 2011 the EU Commission took steps to reduce monoculture agricultural practices around the Union. Monocultures are viewed as a threat to the ecology as they weaken the DNA of the plant strand in question through lack of variety and create a hospitable environment for the development of new plant diseases. The horticultural lands of Valencia, where up to 50 per cent of land is taken up with orange groves, was one of the prime examples cited in the initial studies. The Huerta Development Fund was set up specifically to encourage farmers to change their crops and to diversify agricultural land utilisation.

  Abogados Grau appeared to discover a loophole in the EU legislation whereby land in which the monoculture was abandoned – where the production of oranges (in the case of Valencia) ceased – could qualify for the Huerta Development Fund grants without proof being provided that an alternative crop had replaced it. What was more, the law was retroactive, so that orange groves that had been abandoned up to ten years earlier could still be claimed for.

  The law firm quickly built up a long list of clients after a small initial publicity campaign. Word of mouth ensured that in less than a year most orange farmers in the Valencia area had learned of the scheme. In many cases it was as profitable for a farmer to abandon his groves and take the EU grant money as it was to continue farming. This increasingly became the case after large supermarket chains began to drive the price of oranges down. In just over two years, Abogados Grau had more than 500 orange farmers on its list of clients and it shut down all other work in order to dedicate itself entirely to the administration and redistribution of the EU grant money.

  In the year that the Hacienda investigation began, Abogados Grau S.A. received a total of €5,386,911.23 in EU grants – monies that came directly from both the Huerta Development Fund and the Agricultural Fund. This amount was confirmed by EU finance administration sources, as well as by a Hacienda examination of the Abogados Grau accounts.

  Over the course of the same year, however, only €2,067,264.82 was distributed by the law company to its clients, leaving a deficit of €3,319,646.41, or 61.62 per cent of the total monies received from the EU funds. In its literature, Abogados Grau claimed to be taking a 15 per cent commission from the monies received for administration costs. This is the maximum allowed by law. Tax documentation presented by the company to Hacienda stated clearly that this was the amount of commission that they were charging, showing an annual return of not more than €328,036.70. Yet it was clear that the firm was taking considerably more than the figure officially provided to the tax authorities.

  From an initial suspicion of tax fraud, there were indications that the company was also involved in embezzlement. Before passing the case over to the Policía Nacional Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF), however, it was decided to continue the investigation on a wider scale.

  From her bank statements, it was observed that Doña Grau made regular trips to Málaga, flying from Valencia airport on the first flight in the morning – usually on a two-monthly basis. From Málaga, Doña Grau would board the helicopter service to the Autonomous City of Ceuta, across the strait – a journey of around fifteen minutes. This was deemed suspicious, and a watch was placed on her.

  On or about the allocated time, she repeated her journey. Hacienda operatives observed her catching the plane to Málaga, boarding the helicopter to Ceuta and then arriving at the city’s heliport. She had no luggage apart from a tan leather briefcase.

  After leaving the heliport, she was observed to take a taxi the short distance to Plaza de Africa in central Ceuta, where she went to a place known as El Bar Paco. She remained there for no more than an hour, ordering a café con leche, and then leaving once again for the heliport, where she caught the return flight back to Málaga. After lunching at the airport, she would catch the mid-afternoon flight back to Valencia, arriving at around 17.00. She carried a tan leather briefcase with her the whole time.

  Doña Grau was observed making two such journeys and her habits did not change: the same flights, the same briefcase. But this only raised suspicions even more and it was decided to continue surveillance.

  Shortly afterwards, however, Doña Grau died. The expectation was that the law firm would close with her death, but observation of the company’s accounts for subsequent months showed that the EU grant money was still coming in and that a percentage of it was still being paid out to the farmers. After further investigation, it was discovered that Abogados Grau had been passed over in its entirely to Doña Grau’s husband, Alfonso Segarra. At the time it was assumed that Don Segarra would be closing the firm down in due course. Owing to the fact that his wife had recently died, it was decided – for ‘humanitarian’ reasons – not to pursue the case, but to keep the operations under observation for the following months.

  The investigation was unexpectedly reinitiated, however, after a chance sighting of Don Segarra in Ceuta. The Hacienda operative in the city had not been tasked with watching the Bar Paco on the day when Doña Grau might have been expected to make her regular visit, but decided to go in his own free time. He saw Don Segarra enter the bar at about the time that Doña Grau would have done. In his hand was a tan leather briefcase. Segarra ordered a café solo tocado con whisky, drank it quickly, and left the bar in less than five minutes. He was observed getting into a taxi and asking to be taken to the heliport. Unlike his deceased wife, however, Segarra was not carrying a briefcase with him when he left.

  The Hacienda operative decided to continue his observations in the Bar Paco – the last place that the briefcase had been seen. After about an hour, he saw the owner of the bar, Don Francisco (known as Paco) Díaz García, leaving the premises with a tan leather briefcase in his hand – the same one that Segarra had brought with him.

  The operative followed the bar owner at a safe distance, and saw him walk to a building in an adjacent street and climb the steps to an office on the second floor. A few minutes later, Don Francisco García returned without the briefcase and proceeded to the bar, where he resumed his work.

  The only office on the second floor of the building – on C/ Jáudenes – is that belonging to the Veteran Legionarios’ Welfare Association.

  Shortly after this, the Hacienda investigation was closed down on the orders of the Office of the Minister to the President of the Government on the grounds that the target, Doña Francisca Grau, had passed away. All lines of inquiry were subsequently closed and a Cessation Order was placed into effect.

  ‘WHERE DID YOU get this from?’

  Torres stared at Cámara over closed fingertips, his eyebrows pulled high.

  Cámara shrugged: Torres got the message.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Cámara asked.

  Torres puffed out his cheeks, his hands falling to his desk.

  ‘What do I reckon? I reckon the whole thing’s fucking rotten. Alfonso Segarra’s wife was running an embezzlement racket nicking millions of EU grant money and all to get farmers round here to abandon their orange groves.’

  ‘And where was Fermín’s body found?’

  Torres nodded.

  ‘In an abandoned orange grove. You know Segarra’s always going on about using local produce, about how Horta supports farmers in the Valencia area. He’s a local boy, helping his own. Or supposedly. And yet there’s his wife doing everything she can to stop them farming.’

  ‘Possibly in conjunction with Segarra himself,’ said Cámara. ‘That bit about supermarkets driving down the price of fruit at the same time. I wonder if that’s just coincidence.’

  ‘Working like a team,’ Torres snorted. ‘Nice. I wonder where the oranges I’m buying actually come from, then? It says Valencia on the packaging.’

  ‘Morocco, at a guess. They’ll re-label it once it gets here. But we’re missing the point.’

  ‘The point?’

  ‘This investigation wa
s closed down just when it was getting interesting.’

  ‘Where did you get …?’ Torres began. ‘OK, forget it.’

  ‘My feeling is that there’s something in this Veteran Legionarios’ outfit.’

  ‘The briefcase,’ Torres said. ‘You think it’s stuffed with cash.’

  Cámara nodded.

  ‘Francisca Grau makes regular trips down to Ceuta with a lot of money on her in the briefcase, leaves it there and then comes home.’

  ‘But she had the briefcase with her on the return leg each time,’ said Torres.

  ‘She had a briefcase with her – one that looked exactly the same. But was it?’

  Torres grunted.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

  ‘And it explains the trips down there in the first place. Why else would you fly all the way to Ceuta every two months? Is the coffee down there really that good?’

  Torres smirked. ‘You’re starting to sound like me,’ he said.

  ‘Well, given that today you’re not doing a very good job of being you, someone’s got to. Anyway,’ Cámara continued, ‘the thing is that when Segarra went down there himself he forgot to do the switch. It was his first time. He simply left the cash, didn’t pick up the identical but empty briefcase, and then headed home. That was his mistake.’

  ‘You’re suggesting then,’ said Torres, ‘that all this money that Abogados Grau has been embezzling has been going to some welfare fund for retired soldiers?’

  Cámara nodded.

  ‘What, millions? For a bunch of veterans?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right,’ Torres said. He could see that Cámara was insistent. ‘I suppose we’d better look into it, then, this organisation.’